Keenan Simik Komaksiutiksak

Ryan Kowtecky

Keenan Simik Komaksiutiksak suffers from anxiety. The best way for them to ease their mind and get their head back on track has always been through improvisational dance. Growing up, the practice of improvisation, movement and dancing was a solace for expressing their feelings through their body. They are an intergenerational survivor of the Residential school system of Canada. Harm reduction has always been their priority, and dance has been at the center of this, as a vehicle to express their emotions when it wasn’t always possible to communicate them through words. Dance has offered them a space for dialogue that helped them cope with intergenerational trauma throughout their life. As a guest to Tiohtià:ke/Mooniyang/Montreal, they find it important that they situate themselves within the community and continue to build and foster relationships, and further their development as an emerging choreographer.

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Anxiety

Anxiety is a dance creation that Keenan Simik Komaksiutiksak is developing with a collective of Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists. This project supports the practice of collaboration through the creation of a shared choreographic body of work grounded in improvisational movement. An emphasis on developing a grounded and safe working practice with the team of collaborators allows for a secure and open exploration and study of different mannerisms, gestures, and physical traits that we each carry, which stem from our anxieties. Keenan Simik Komaksiutiksak’s desire is to explore how we release and free tensions through the expressive body, while connecting generational knowledge and bridging this into dance form and expression, to build a joint methodology and artistic vocabulary. They’re creating a space for these important questions surrounding the personal stories, histories, families, relationships and social and current realities in presence. This project impacts many artists as it offers a creative space where questioning, reflecting, and being in dialogue with questions pertaining to the health of our bodies shed light on forging new paths. It is Indigenous led and Indigenous-centered.

©Ryan Kowtecky

CREDITS

Team

Lara Kramer : Project Mentor
Mariam Inua Imak (preferred name Inua) : Dancer
Lauren Ashley Jiles : Dancer and seamstress
Cheyenne LaGrande : Dancer
Courtney Taticek : Dancer
Chrystal Tam : Dancer